Government: Program to keep sexual predators behind bars is failing

11:12 PM,
Apr. 1, 2013

Written by

Brad Heath
| USA Today

The federal government has sharply scaled back a controversial effort to keep dangerous sexual predators in prison.

The U.S. Justice Department has said its program is critical for protecting the public, but it has been beset by problems since it began seven years ago. Most of its attempts to keep accused predators locked up have failed. Along the way, it kept dozens of men in prison for years without a hearing, relied on medical determinations that proved faulty and faced a succession of legal battles over whether it even has the power to keep people locked up indefinitely.